A lovely maiden with flowers in her hair emerges from a background mix of reds, pinks, bronze and gold foil. Her tender face is drawn in exquisite detail right down to the lashes under her blue eyes. The photo of the face on the computer monitor simply does not do this box justice; the skin color, shading and details on the box itself are pretty much as close as you can get to miniature perfection. A glimpse of her shoulder on the right is the only other thing we see of her. A very subtle inlay of mother-of-pearl, meanwhile, is placed to the left of her head and seamlessly blends into the rest of the scene. The surroundings are not wholly definable, except for hints of flowers and trees, but nonetheless are breathtakingly beautiful. Around the sides of the box, the shapes of the flower petals are a little more distinguishable, but the artist nonetheless never leaves the imaginative realm of the abstract. The box has a hinge at the left and a red interior. It is made out of high quality papier mache and signed on the bottom with the name of the artist, village, title and year. The artist, Yulia Danilina, has a box featured in a gorgeous published book Russian Lacquer Miniatures: New Visions" on the subject. A superb miniature from a very talented artist from Fedoskino.

Lacquerbox Condition Ratings

Surface Condition (exterior)	Surface Condition (interior/bottom)	Box Materials and Soundness	Hinge and Lid Placement	Signature	Total Rating	Mother-of-pearl Condition
9.5	9.5	10.0	10.0	10.0	49	9.5

(Each category rated 1-10. For low scores, look for explanation in the description of box. In general, any total rating over 40 is excellent. For more information on rating system, click here.)